"Hugo Race and the True Spirit are both passionate bluesmen and accomplished sonic adventurers. By any measure, that is a rare combination. Their new album "Taoist Priests" crackles, slithers, haunts and convinces. If you are not already listening, it is high time that you did." Chris Eckman (Walkabouts)

“i think hugo race is one of the most original and exciting artists around, i really dug his gig in prague awhile back and think he deserves to be a lot better known in the world.” Gary Lucas

Hugo Race sam o sobie:“I'm a prolific artist as you might know. The last 3 years I've released a series of albums: the ambient soundtrack-style noise psychedelia of Transfargo "Mil Transit": the urban dreamscapes of the "Goldstreet Sessions": the Italian montage of "Merola Matrix": the trip-pop of Sepiatone's "Dark Summer": the raw cosmic blues of "Ambuscado": the live garage rock of "Live in Monaco". For me, these six albums have been a journey of exploration through my creative psyche where I've let tangents unfold and the music that’s in me emerge without judgement or self-consciousness.On this new Spirit album, which is very much a songwriters album with the emphasis on the lyrics and vocals, all of the sounds and moods of the previous six albums have been fused into one total vision that is a kind of multi-layered self-portrait. I had to deconstruct everything to find out what I'm about. Here I'm dealing with my own demons and also with the demons unleashed in our epoch. I turn away from nothing because I'm after transparent clarity, but the mirror is black. This is a record full of honest lyrics that focus on the external and personal worlds, on how they link and reflect each other, on hypocrisy and greed and self-deception, set against a background of 21st century political soap opera and global chaos; but its also about transcendence and the revelatory power of the naked truth on a personal level. Quit telling lies to ourselves and in so doing stop the spread of lies all around us on every level. I called this project the True Spirit because I believe in the spiritual power of music as a way to uplift and celebrate, not just as a form of light entertainment. This album is the result of all the work I've created before it, so everything I've ever done is inside it.We have the musical skills and the production skills, but more we have an integrity and a commitment to a personal, uncompromising vision of ourselves as independent artists. We've seen a lot of hard times and some terrible luck, and commercial success has never been ours, but we keep on producing international albums that impact on audiences around the world, attracting new fans and expanding our repertoire, not just of songs, but of sounds and concepts. The True Spirit keeps on growing. Our aim is to create our own commercial niche, in the way other artists from Giant Sand to Flaming Lips to Will Oldham have done, just to name a few obvious examples.”